House Republicans are threatening Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress because, they said, he withheld information from lawmakers about the department’s ill-fated Fast and Furious gun-walking program.
House Government and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has for months accused Holder of stonewalling his panel about the case. On Thursday, Issa began circulating to committee members a draft contempt order against Holder.
Issa, R-Calif., wants more information, including internal Justice Department emails, related to Fast and Furious, a program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives under which officials allowed American guns to be sold to Mexican drug cartels so U.S. officials could track the weapons to top drug traffickers.
One of those guns was traced to the 2010 shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
“The Justice Department’s failure to respond appropriately to the allegations of whistleblowers and to cooperate with congressional oversight has crossed the line of appropriate conduct for a government agency,” Issa said in a letter to the committee.
The draft contempt document also accuses the Justice Department of intimidating witnesses and intentionally misleading investigators about the case.
Holder has insisted that he is fully cooperating with Congress, but said providing additional information would have a chilling effect on the agency. Holder said he believes Issa’s investigation is politically motivated.
A Justice Department official told The Washington Examiner Thursday that the department “strongly disputes” Issa’s allegation that it is stonewalling Congress. Holder has testified before Congress seven times in the past year and the department has made many other officials and thousands of documents available, the official said.
The department is withholding only information that if given to Congress “would politicize and/or jeopardize ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions,” the official said.
Getting a contempt resolution through Congress is difficult. It would begin with a vote by Issa’s panel and then approval of the full House and Senate.
“Decisions about setting a vote have not been made,” a committee aide told The Examiner.
Even if Congress passed a contempt resolution, it is even more unusual for the Justice Department to prosecute such cases, said Stan Brand, a Washington attorney and former counsel to the House clerk.
The last time Congress voted on a contempt resolution was 1983 when an Environmental Protection Agency employee refused to appear for hearings. That person was ultimately acquitted, Brand said.
“There’s not a chance that Eric Holder will be held in contempt of Congress,” Brand said.
Lanny Davis, special counsel to former President Clinton, called the Issa contempt threat “absolutely pure politics.”
Davis, whose law firm specializes in legal crisis management, said Issa has shown his partisan stripes by not seeking information from Bush administration officials even though the Fast and Furious program existed under the Republican president’s watch.
But Republicans in both the House and Senate say Issa is merely holding the Justice Department accountable for a program that had tragic consequences.
“Congressman Issa deserves credit for moving forward on contempt,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The attorney general and the Justice Department are thumbing their nose at the constitutional authority provided to the legislative branch to conduct oversight.”
