Former Attorney General Eric Holder said he was “inappropriately” held in contempt of Congress.
The onetime Obama administration official appeared on CNN to discuss Attorney General William Barr facing a contempt vote by a Democrat-controlled House next week over fuller access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which was released in April with redactions, and allegations that he is trying to protect the president.
Host Chris Cuomo noted how Holder’s critics “hit you with the same stick” after refusing in 2012 to turn over documents related to the botched Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation and asked Holder to explain how this fight over Mueller’s findings is different.
“When it comes to Fast and Furious, the thing for which I was held in contempt, and I would say, inappropriately held in contempt, we turned over 7,000 documents,” Holder said on Monday, adding that he testified multiples times before Congress and made available witnesses from the Justice Department.
“The only things that we held back were deliberative materials and materials that talked about how we were going to respond to Congress, not with regard to the substance,” he said. “All those documents were ultimately released by Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions. And guess what? There was nothing in there of any significance that we were holding back.”
Under Operation Fast and Furious, U.S. guns were allowed to flow into Mexico so they could be tracked to drug traffickers by the Phoenix Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But the guns began turning up at crime scenes, including the murder of a U.S. border agent.
The contempt vote against Holder, which was held by a GOP-controlled House and led to a walkout by Democrats who called it a “witch hunt,” was followed by the Justice Department declining to criminally prosecute Holder and a federal judge ruling in 2014 against a House motion to have him held in contempt. A seven-year legal battle over access to the records between the House and Justice Department ended with a settlement last month.
Holder, who said “we were fighting for a principle,” argued Barr’s refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena was not justifiable and that he mischaracterized Mueller’s report, over which Trump has asserted executive privilege.
“The total way in which Barr and other members of the Trump administration have refused to turn over documents, refused to testify, it is inconsistent with the duties that they have as members of the Cabinet,” he said.
Pointing to Barr’s lack of cooperation with Congress and his investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, Holder tweeted last month that Barr is “protecting the President” and is “not fit to lead DOJ.”
