This article first appeared in the St. Louis Becon, June 20, 2012 - WASHINGTON – Brushing aside a last-minute White House assertion of “executive privilege,” a U.S. House committee voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to produce key documents the panel subpoenaed in its investigation into the botched “fast and furious” gun operation.
The party-line vote of 23-17 in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the contempt of Congress resolution was hailed by Republicans but infuriated Democrats, who called the panel’s inquiry a “kangaroo court” and a “political witch hunt.”
U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, denounced the contempt vote, saying it was “lamentable, regrettable, and it reeks of politics.” He told the Beacon that he expected the full House to vote on the contempt resolution as early as next week, and it appeared likely that the GOP majority would approve it.
In his remarks before the vote, Clay accused committee Republicans of trying to “create a scandal” with a series of “sensational charges” and “reckless accusations” about the gun enforcement operation that were never substantiated.
But the panel’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asserted that the failed “fast and furious” operation – which involved efforts to sell thousands of guns to arms dealers at the U.S.-Mexico border and then trace them to drug lords – was worthy of investigation. Many of the guns later showed up at crime scenes, including one from the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Congressional investigators want to know if high-level Justice Department officials knew about the operation’s problems before it was shut down.
The committee subpoenaed the documents last year, and Issa and Holder have engaged in a long-running dispute about which of them should be turned over. After a fruitless meeting Tuesday with Issa, Holder asked the White House – which complied the next morning – to claim executive privilege over some documents related to the failed gun-walking “sting” operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
“We regret that we have arrived at this point, after the many steps we have taken to address the committee’s concerns and to accommodate the committee’s legitimate oversight interests regarding Operation Fast and Furious,” Deputy AG James Cole wrote to Issa. “Although we are deeply disappointed that the committee appears intent on proceeding with a contempt vote, the department remains willing to work with the committee to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution of the outstanding issues.”
Issa rejected the claim of executive privilege as a reason to delay a vote on the contempt citation, saying “this untimely assertion by the Justice Department falls short of any reason” to delay a vote. But the panel’s ranking Democrat, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., argued that Holder had acted in “good faith” to try to negotiate a deal with the committee on which documents to hand over.
“For the past year, you've been holding the attorney general to an impossible standard," Cummings said. Clay went further, telling the Beacon that the committee’s GOP leadership “kept changing the target” of the inquiry. “They dialed back the scope of their request, and when [Holder] tried to meet that and negotiate with them, it wasn’t enough.”
Clay added of the GOP leaders: “They could not take ‘yes’ for answer.”
He and other committee Democrats argued for a delay in the contempt vote to consider the administration’s assertion of executive privilege. “I treat assertions of executive privilege very seriously, and I believe they should be used only sparingly,” Cummings said. “It seems clear that the administration was forced into this position by the committee’s unreasonable insistence on pressing forward with contempt despite the attorney general’s good-faith offer.”
(Start update) U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood, who is not a member of the oversight committee, issued a statement Wednesday questioning the White House assertion of executive privilege, alleging a cover-up and calling on Holder to resign.
"I have already called for Eric Holder to resign, and I renew that call today," Akin said in a statement. "The scope and damage from this cover-up continues to expand. For the president to extend executive privilege in this matter suggests that 'fast and furious' could go all the way back to him. Our nation does not need more cover-ups and scandals – we need transparency and integrity. The president cannot use executive privilege to withhold evidence in a criminal case. The Supreme Court was clear on that in the landmark decision of U.S. vs. Nixon. This is just as true in 'fast and furious' as it was in Watergate." (End update)
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, will decide whether and when to bring the committee’s contempt report to the full House for a vote. On Wednesday, his spokesman criticized the administration’s assertion of executive privilege on some documents, arguing that it “implies that White House officials were either involved in the 'fast and furious' operation or the cover-up that followed.”
While previous efforts have been made, Congress has never cited an attorney general – the nation’s top law-enforcement official – for contempt. The GOP-led oversight committee had voted in 1998 to recommend holding then-AG Janet Reno in contempt over documents related to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, but the full House never voted on the contempt resolution.