28 GOP Reps Join Call for Holder's Resignation

Tuesday, 01 Nov 2011 01:14 PM
By Martin Gould and Michelle Lopata

The White House is moving to shore up support for embattled Attorney General Eric Holder as calls for his resignation continue to grow in the light of the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.

Eleven Republican congressmen piled on Holder on Monday, demanding that he quit, adding to 17 others who had already said it is time for him to go.

Others held off on calling for his immediate resignation, but said he has one last chance to redeem himself, when he appears before the House judiciary committee on Dec. 8.

Holder has come under increasing fire for stonewalling on Fast and Furious.

On Monday he released 652 pages of documents to congressional committees that are probing the scandal. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee are now combing through the documents for evidence of wrongdoing.

The documents are understood to draw a parallel between Fast and Furious and a similar scheme called Operation Wide Receiver that was in operation during the George W. Bush presidency. This is providing some cover for Holder who can claim that he wasn’t in office when such programs started.

But Grassley said, “At first glance the documents indicate that contrary to previous denials by the Justice Department, the criminal division has a great deal of culpability in sweeping the previous Operation Wide Receiver strategy under the rug and then allowing the subsequent Operation Fast and Furious to continue without asking key questions.â€