Thread: Issa Plans to Move Forward With Holder Contempt Vote

Issa Plans to Move Forward With Holder Contempt Vote

By Billy House
June 19, 2012 | 6:21 p.m. |

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.

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.

http://influencealley.nationaljourna...phpatf,mexican cartels

Grassley on Holder’s Fast and Furious request: ‘I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke’

By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller | The Daily Caller – 1 hr 0


Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said on Tuesday evening that Attorney General Eric Holder is looking for a “free pass” on Operation Fast and Furious.
Grassley praised House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa’s decision to move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings if Holder doesn’t provide promised documents to Congress by a scheduled 10 a.m. Wednesday vote. Grassley, Issa, Holder, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Maryland Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings and Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy all met in the Capitol on Tuesday in an effort to avert contempt proceedings. Since Holder won’t give up the documents, the contempt proceedings are set to move forward.
“The attorney general wants to trade a briefing and the promise of delivering some small, unspecified set of documents tomorrow for a free pass today,” Grassley said. “He wants to turn over only what he wants to turn over and not give us any information about what he’s not turning over. That’s unacceptable. I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke. Chairman Issa is right to move forward to seek answers about a disastrous government operation.”
Leahy, on the other hand, offered his full support for Holder to a few reporters after the meeting.
“I certainly support the attorney general and I appreciate that he is going the extra mile to resolve this,” Leahy said in a quote later provided to The Daily Caller.

http://news.yahoo.com/grassley-holde...025203315.html

And then? The courts ruled against the EPA too and nothing happened.

F&F RELATED ..

Darrell Issa: Contempt vote coming on Fast and Furious
By: John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman
June 19, 2012 06:31 PM EDT

House Republicans are charging head first into their most direct conflict with President Barack Obama’s administration over the extent of executive branch power, as they prepare to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress on Wednesday.

Holder and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) failed to reach an agreement on what documents the administration would fork over to help Republicans investigate the Fast and Furious program, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives operation that put guns into the hands of Mexican cartels.

The two sides remained at loggerheads Tuesday evening, after a 20-minute huddle in Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s third-floor Capitol suite. Holder later called Issa’s position “political gamesmanship” and not a true attempt to resolve the dispute.

After the session, Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said no deal was in hand and Wednesday’s vote would move forward, barring a last-minute reversal.

The contempt fight with Holder and the White House is a big moment for House Republicans. With stubbornly high unemployment, a president with weak approval ratings, a redistricting process that has shored up Republican seats from coast to coast and a worse-than-expected economic recovery, GOP officials think they’re poised to keep the House in their control, and many believe they have a shot at taking the Senate and White House.

Yet, despite public pronouncements of support from Boehner and other GOP leaders, significant pockets among GOP leadership think the spectacle of holding the attorney general in contempt of Congress would knock the party off message.

The crux of the issue is simple: Holder said he would brief the committee on documents detailing what the Justice Department knew about the program and fork over some additional documents if Issa agrees to forgo his threat to hold Holder in contempt of Congress. For Holder, the contempt issue has to disappear. Issa, for his part, said he wants the documents in his hands before he makes any decision about whether to proceed with the contempt vote.

But there is a huge gap of trust and confidence between House Republicans and the Justice Department — backed by the White House — that has only widened throughout the long Fast and Furious probe. Obama administration officials and their Democratic counterparts on Capitol Hill say Issa keeps increasing his demands.

“They keep moving the goal posts,” said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings , the top Democrat on the Oversight panel. He predicted the committee’s Democrats would all back Holder.

Issa said he was open to a deal with Holder and had sought one for months, only to meet obstruction and obfuscation.

“To summarize, he came with an offer of a briefing,” Issa told reporters in the Capitol after the meeting. “We went through the process of what was being offered, as I think we have to, which is that the documents that they may choose to give in the future, we need to have tomorrow. Ultimately, the documents necessary to cause a postponement appear to be in their possession. We’re hoping that we have them tonight. If we can evaluate them even partially, that will give us grounds to negotiate a postponement and perhaps a final resolution.”

Issa said he has “no hard deadlines” but that the committee must receive the documents from Justice before the hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday. That gave Holder’s side roughly 16 hours to comply.

In an unusual news conference in the Capitol just minutes later, Holder would not say whether he was speaking to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) or Cantor about heading off the contempt vote, which is scheduled for Wednesday at noon. GOP leadership was not involved in the Tuesday afternoon meeting. A spokesman for Boehner said the two have “not spoken, and if they had, the speaker would have told the attorney general the same thing Chairman Issa told him today.”

“I have to say, given the extraordinary nature of the offer that we made, and given the extraordinary way we shared materials to date, I think we’re actually involved more in political gamesmanship rather than trying to get the information they say they want,” Holder said.

Cummings — who, along with Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), sat in on the meeting — said he believed Issa was ready to move the contempt resolution against Holder no matter what the attorney general said or did.

“Clearly, it appears that the chairman had even made up his mind before we even walked in the room,” Cummings told reporters.

But Republicans of all stripes — including the leadership — have been put off by what they consider Justice’s resistance to handing over documents.

In recent months, the confrontation between Holder and Issa has become prime political theater. In May, GOP leadership stepped in and Issa significantly pared back his document request, asking for records that showed what the Justice Department knew after Feb. 4. (In February, the administration essentially admitted Fast and Furious had been problematic.)

Holder’s team, seeking to counter Issa’s investigation, sent letters to Capitol Hill reporters from left-leaning groups strongly opposed to the contempt process.

Then there was the high-stakes meeting on Tuesday, which failed to end the standoff.

source: Darrell Issa: Contempt vote coming on Fast and Furious - John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

ADDED DAILY CALLER ARTICLE TO ALIPAC HOMEPAGE News with amended title ..

http://www.alipac.us/content/issa-pl...empt-vote-653/

RELATED PIG 'N POKE F&F ALIPAC News ..

Judicial Watch Sues ATF for Fast and Furious Records Detailing Communications between ATF and Obama White House Official

Nevertheless, the White House has thus far refused to make O’Reilly, now reportedly stationed in Iraq in a new position with the Obama State Department, available for questioning.

“The Obama administration has clammed up on Fast and Furious. We’re having trouble getting almost anything out of them. No wonder, as the Fast and Furious lies and killings makes it one of the worst scandals in recent American history. The American people deserve to know what White House officials knew and when they knew it,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Holder is not alone in this mess,I smell cover up.!!!!!