Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) blasted her colleagues in the House of Representatives from the chamber floor Thursday, saying that without the “so-called” scandals involving Attorney General Eric Holder and his office, Congress wouldn’t have “anything to do.”
The delegate for the District of Columbia’s remarks came shortly after Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) had made a sweeping defense of Holder, calling Congress’ bipartisan investigations into the Associated Press wiretapping and Internal Revenue Service improper targeting scandals.
“Do note that this is a Congress that has no agenda,” Holmes Norton said on the House floor Thursday. “If it had not been for these so-called scandals, I’m not sure there would be anything to do. They tend to go home early. To come late. There’s nothing of much consequence on the floor.”
She then on to claim that Congress isn’t a fair governing body, which is why it’s wrong for people to say that Holder is a proxy for the United States when it comes to last year’s Fast and Furious scandal.
“The failure to look at the root causes of the tragedy involving two administrations to call no official from the administration that was responsible for thinking of the idea of gun-running in the first place, but carrying it on for some time, does demonstrate that this is not a Congress known for its fairness,” she said.
Holmes Norton also came to the defense of President Obama on the IRS’s improper targeting of conservative organizations, exclaiming that the accusations against the President are tantamount to the claims that former Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) launched against alleged communists in the U.S. during the 1950s.
“All of us have been very critical of the IRS, we still don’t know what really happened there,” she stated. “But without knowing it, there’s some of my committee that are tracing it back the President of the United States without of a scintilla of evidence… that, 50 years ago would have been called what it is, McCarthyism.”
