Eric Holder Doesn't Follow Through With Promise to Provide Issa With Fast & Furious Docs
skinnydipinacidUPDATE: Oversight Committee Finds Holder in Comtempts 23-17
Vote Split Along Partisan Lines
Charges will be brought upon the House floor next week for a full vote.
After the vote was complete by the House Oversight Committee, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) issued the following statement:
“Despite being given multiple opportunities to provide the documents necessary for Congress’ investigation into Fast and Furious, Attorney General Holder continues to stonewall. Today, the Administration took the extraordinary step of exerting executive privilege over documents that the Attorney General had already agreed to provide to Congress.
Fast and Furious was a reckless operation that led to the death of an American border agent, and the American people deserve to know the facts to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. While we had hoped it would not come to this, unless the Attorney General reevaluates his choice and supplies the promised documents, the House will vote to hold him in contempt next week. If, however, Attorney General Holder produces these documents prior to the scheduled vote, we will give the Oversight Committee an opportunity to review in hopes of resolving this issue.”
Now some highlights (and lowlights) of the day.
First off is Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) who caught my attention mid-daydream with this fiery statement:
Sure as hell beats this video of (groan) Sheila Jackson Lee (D):
Of course... it's all Bush's fault... haven't heard that zinger before...
... and when we don't buy that, it's gotta be racist:
What the heck, Tingles? “I don’t want to start too much forest fire here but it is my instinct... you know, my 'go-to' exuse, that... uh, isn't this just ethnic, er uh, pretty friggin' racist? You know, the disdain coming from those mean old racist Republicans... they talk down to the president and his friends, ya know... and you shouldn't do that to Obama... doing that is obvious racism.... simple math... Questions + Republicans = Racism.... blub blub blub..."
However the biggest star of the today had to be Barack Obama, who not only issued a historic executive order, blocking the yet to be released documents Rep. Issa has been pushing for... but he also spoke against the Attorney General, telling him that the job of the AG is not to persue a political agenda:
Oh wait... my bad. That was him in 2005 speaking about the role of the AG under Bush. Oh well, still fits today, so you get the gold star in my book Mr. President.
Previously on the BL Rag...
BREAKING NEWS: House Oversight Committee Takes Up Contempt of Congress Vote Against AG Eric Holder (LIVE)
"Sorry... Can't right now... Too busy"
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa made the following statement after his meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder:
“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. The Department told the Committee on Thursday that it had documents it could produce that would answer our questions. 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.”
Despite a late decision by President Obama to grant Holder executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expected to carry on this morning with its promise the push contempt charges against Holder.
The move by Holder and Obama put requested documents on lockdown not only complicates the fight over the gunrunning op, but also increases suspicions of how far up the totem pole this scandal goes.
Reader Comments (32)
Where was it that Harry Truman said the buck stops?
Will the media cover this scandal now?
And now the cover-up goes all the way to the top.
Obama claims he's never seen any Fast & Furiuos documents? Now executive priveledge? Who thought a bad June couldn't get any worse for Obama?
Will there be 18 minutes of missing tape?
Executive privilege over something he's never seen or even heard about... gotta be a first.
"I didn't do it -- no one saw me do it -- you can't prove anything!" --Barack "Bart Simpson" Obama
Obama says the House committee deserves answers, and that executive privilege is not the right way to go.
http://youtu.be/bpwYh9TD6Nc
[snort]
This is just too good. Obama explains why the House committee deserves answers, and tells us why executive privilege is wrong:
http://youtu.be/bpwYh9TD6Nc
[snort]
Issa's mandate is to gin up a scandal and he keeps coming up empty-handed. I'm afraid the old car thief is toast if he can't deliver something soon.
I'll do you one better, Red
This video is perfection. "The Most Ignorant Man in the World."
http://youtu.be/Aqxl9qiFonc
The boys in prison block H will like Obama.
Dear Lord, man! The government selling guns to Mexican drug dealers resulting in the deaths of several people including a border agent isn't a scandal???
Your leftist mind is so open all of your brains must have spilled out.
The Democrats on the committee should be ashamed of themselves for voting based upon political calculations and not the case before them. But then, if they could feel shame, they wouldn't be members of today's corrupt Democrat Party. The party of Harry Truman and Hubert Humphrey is long gone.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry over that Hardball clip. Chrissy and his backup singers are clearly out of ammo, and are resorting to the very tiresome tactic of attacking Issa as being a racist who "talks down" to Holder and Obama. Good lord. Does Chrissy have any shred of intellectual honesty remaining, or is he just a blatantly obvious operative of the Re-elect Barry Campaign Committee? Sorry... that question was answered long ago by Chrissy himself. He wouldn't know intellectual honesty if it bit him on his ample backside.
Wait a minute... has anyone ever seen Chrissy and Winston in the same room at the same time? Does Winston have that same abrasive boy's choir alto voice with which Chrissy annoys us all? Could it be...........?
Coo coo... Coo coo... Coo coo... Coo coo... must have been happy hour.
(and then she even called Issa a "loose cannon" lol... #irony )
That woman is one fake smile away from an intermittent explosion.
Is there any speculation in the medical community that Botox can seep into the brain and cause dementia?
Right under that Huff 'n Puff article about Pelosi was an ad for Botox. I'm lol-ing out loud, as Adrian Monk would have said.
Amazing to hear the national news organizations now forced to cover Fast and Furious. (CBS had done a good job early on with their investigative reporter, while other networks had their fingers in their ears.) The major networks are actually now saying that a border patrol agent was killed, but I am not sure they are mentioning the 200 or more Mexican victims.
How much coverage is Fast and Furious getting in the Mexican press? The government and the people of Mexico have a right to be very pissed. I did find one article, written by a person who wrote an entire book about Fast and Furious, where she describes a pending Mexican lawsuit.
Took NBC most of the day before they finally came out and mentioned it... then good ol' Brian Williams said:
Another fine example of how cognizant "real journalists" are when compared to "just bloggers." Yes, the corruption in Washington that caused the killing of innocent hundreds as the president interferes with an investigation and the media turns a blind eye because his name isn't affiliated with the right political party...
... ho-hum, just another day.
:::: yyaaaaaawwwwwnn ::::
Excellent article at the Foundry
Uh, “Fap and Furious"--isn't that some sort of ploy to gut the Second Amendment? That's what I heard anyway.
It's like that time the liberals wanted to gut the first amendment by calling all right-leaning talk "hateful" and pushed ridiculous ideas like the "Fairness" Doctrines as the solution... only this time it's quite worse because they got people killed in the process.
I wonder how far these arms got sent. Did they just go to Mexico? Did they get sent overseas somewhere? Are they being used in wars against us in hopes of "tracking bad guys"? Possibilities are pretty much endless now that we've been blocked from gaining any further information on it. It could go back as far as Iraq and GWB and help support your side's overplayed "it's Bush's fault" line that's being pushed as the Dems strategy(even though after watching the committee yesterday it was quite obvious they had their talking points and struggled to regurgitate them), but I guess we'll never know now... will we?
Of course, if Bush actually was a more reasonable argument, wouldn't the Obama administration be out there saying they inherited this Fast and Furious scandal everyday (while average Americans, Independents and even Democrats mock him over how inept he is at putting a stop to it after 3-1/2 years, or as he tries to put an end to it by sending more guns to the troubled aread... multiple times... relatively speaking of course), and wouldn't the lamestream media be talking about it every chance they could as opposed to their deafening silence?
Startling news. John Boehner seems to have grown a spine while we weren't looking:
Here.
Good for him. I only hope that spine doesn't turn back into linguine any time soon.
Dedicated to the windy one and all his liberal beeotches. To the tune of Lennon's "Imagine."
Imagine Richard Nixon, In the oval office Now
And all the mainstream media about to have a cow
Imagine fast and furious way back in the day, yay ay ayeeay
And then you'll see it clearly for everything it is
Yes, then you'll see it clearly for everything it is...
Obama's bureaucratic pissants strike again. Typical leftism at work. What they can't accomplish legitimately through Congress, they will implement via regulatory crapola, leftist judges, and executive orders. All hail Il Duce!
Autocratic and hoplophobic jackasses.
Don't nosy about Fast & Furious because quite frankly... (mmm.... hmmmmm)
Uh oh. You've lost fortune magazine. Oh wait, I'm sure that you'll tell me that Fortune is a socialist rag.
(linked to by skinny)
What's the matter guys? Having trouble with the fact that Foxnews misled you once again?
In Skinny's world, this happened.
That's his story and he's sticking to it.
In Winston's fantasy world, the Fairness Doctrine is a total myth, didn't happen, wasn't supported by Pelosi and little Dick Durbin, after years them attacking hateful talk radio (i.e. conservatives).
LoL, deny... deny... deny
(you're slipping old man)