the committee should leave Mr. Holder alone.
Leave Eric alone!
Posted on 06/28/2012 1:57:36 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
In 255-67 vote, House places Holder in contempt of Congress By Jordy Yager and Pete Kasperowicz - 06/28/12 04:37 PM ET
The House voted Thursday to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not complying with a congressional subpoena.
Seventeen Democrats bucked party lines and voted with Republicans to pass a criminal contempt resolution in a 255-67 vote. House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) pushed that resolution as part of his 16-month investigation into a botched Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation.
Only two Republicans voted no on the measure, while 65 Democrats recorded "no" votes and 108 Democrats didn't cast votes. Most of them were protesting the fact that the House GOP was holding the vote.
The two Republican "no" votes were Reps. Steve LaTourette (Ohio) and Scott Rigell (Va.). Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) was the only "present" vote from either party.
The Department of Justice is not expected to enforce the criminal contempt measure against Holder. But before the end of the day, the House was also expected to pass a separate resolution allowing the GOP House to pursue civil court action against Holder.
That second resolution could lead to a lengthy court battle if Issa pursues civil action against Holder.
While 17 Democrats sided with Republicans in the contempt vote, it was met with outrage from Democrats. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) joined by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and many other Democrats staged a walkout during the vote as Democrats charged the GOP with staging a witch hunt against Holder that demeans the lower chamber.
Pelosi said during the debate that she would join the walkout, and told Democrats it's up to them whether to stay and vote against the resolution, or leave.
"So now I say to those who have a doubt about how they want to proceed, that instead of doing what I said before — which was just to come and to treat this as a bill before the Congress and express my no — listening to the unconscionable presentation, I want to join my CBC colleagues in boycotting the vote when we have the walkout after we have the debate," she said.
Several other Democrats also charged Republicans with making political hay against the Obama administration to help them in the November elections.
"When the history of this despicable proceeding is recorded, it will be said that your actions were politically motivated to discredit and defeat a president who has worked so hard over the past three years," Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) declared on the House floor during rule debate.
But Republicans decried Holder's refusal to hand over documents relating to the Justice Department's reaction to Operation Fast and Furious as nothing less than a "cover-up" and pointed to President Obama's assertion of executive privilege over the material as evidence of the administration's lack of transparency.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made a rare appearance on the floor to call for support for the resolution.
"I don't take this matter lightly, and I frankly hoped it would never come to this," Boehner said about an hour before voting started.
"But no Justice Department is above the law, and no Justice Department is above the Constitution, which each of us has sworn an oath to uphold," he said. "So I ask the members of this body to come together and to support this resolution."
Before the final vote, the House rejected a motion from Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) to recommit the resolution to Issa's committee. That motion failed 172-251, after which dozens of Democrats left the chamber.
As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa has led Congress's investigation of Fast and Furious, which oversaw the sale of nearly 2,000 firearms to straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels.
Issa was initially concerned with uncovering who was responsible for allowing guns to "walk" during the operation. But he recently switched the primary concentration of his probe to focus on the DOJ's internal communications after the details of the operation were made public.
At the center of the feud between the DOJ and Issa is a letter the department sent last year to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) stating that it does everything in its power to stop guns from going to Mexico. Ten months later, the DOJ took the rare step of withdrawing the letter because it contained false information.
Nearly two months before the DOJ rescinded the letter, Issa subpoenaed Holder for documents related to the fallout that the letter's misinformation had caused.
But after turning over about 7,600 pages of documents to Issa on Fast and Furious, the Attorney General has refused to comply with the remainder of the subpoena, stating that much of the requested information would jeopardize ongoing prosecutions and criminal cases if it were made public.
After attempts at negotiating a compromise failed last week, the president — at Holder's urging — asserted executive privilege over the documents in question.
The DOJ's inspector general has been investigating the failed operation for more than a year as well. And Issa says he should have access to the roughly 80,000 documents that the IG has received from the DOJ.
... 108 Democrats didn’t cast votes ...
There’s some real leadership.
In their latest display of political ineptitude, House Republicans today held the contempt vote for Attorney General Eric Holder over his failure to turn over documents in the Fast and Furious scandal. They could not have picked a worse time to schedule the vote. With the Obamacare decision breaking, the Holder vote – a turning point in the fight against Holder’s stonewalling on Fast and Furious – was absolutely swamped by Obamacare coverage. The planned Congressional Black Caucus walkout on the vote – an idiotic move designed to make the argument that Holder is being targeted due to his race – was completely overshadowed.
A conservative win over the Obama administration became a Thursday document dump, a net public relations loss for Republicans.
Whoever planned this ought to be fired.The American people deserved to be able to watch those proceedings without thinking about the greatest encroachment on personal freedom in our lifetimes. The focus should have been on Obama administration cover-ups. It should have been about Brian Terry.
Instead, we got President Obama triumphing over the Constitution with the help of the Supreme Court at the same time Republicans smacked his Attorney General.
With PR friends like this, conservatives don’t need enemies.
What good will this do?
Yup, time to join the winning side, FR was wrong all along....
Whoop-de-doo. Big deal.
Your right the 17 th did it. This was just another nail.
while 65 Democrats recorded “no” votes and 108 Democrats didn’t cast votes.
So the final results were really 255 yes,,,173 no.
no but 4 votes do.
dred scott
roe v wade
emminent domain
obamacare.
if this doesnt wake up our people nothing will.
the frog is just abt cooked.
i am just abt done fighting. ill take care of me n mine.
these useful idiots will get what they deserve..
we can probably start writing the 2013 headlines now.
massive starvation disease riots and that is just the beginning.
Muslims wont denounce their extremists, let alone will Democrates admit they have a problem. Of course, the RINOs being around and backstabbing does not help either.
They all have to keep the country on its homosexualoid track, or else it’s a roll back to reality that they are too cowardly to even mentaly conceive. They have given up long ago.
Holders punishment should be that he must patrol the border in full ICE uniform for the next few years with one of those bean bag guns they get
Not only did they vote to place him in Contempt of Congress, they voted next to vote him in Civil Contempt of Congress.
The civil charge can be referred to the courts.
Surprisingly, even more Democrats voted for that than voted for the simple Contempt of Congress.
I am not trying to be flippant, but does this mean that Holder (or anyone else) actually has to supply the requested evidence or is it just a nice little procedure?
It’s a “Dog and Pony” Show, nothing will happen to Holder.
As for those who walked out -- including Pelosi -- replace every one of them. What's with these Democrats? They run away and pout if they don't like the way the vote turns out? Cry babies.
We are just waiting for a Cesar or a Mussolini now.
But five do.
The 17th amendment, progressive taxation, and the total abuse of the commerce clause have killed the Republic.
There is no facet of our lives not now controlled by the Federal government.
BINGO! The vote sure looks lopsided against Holder because they did that. Cowards!
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