House GOP threaten Holder with contempt
Attorney general says he has cooperated with document requests.
WASHINGTON — House Republicans threatened Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. with a criminal contempt of Congress citation on Thursday, alleging the Department of Justice has refused for a year to turn over key documents in lawmakers’ investigation of the failed Fast and Furious guntracking operation.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-calif., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Holder in a Capitol Hill hearing that the Justice Department has provided only 6,400 pages of “heavily redacted” documents out of 93,000 sought.
Issa said he and his GOP colleagues believe that Justice officials are suppressing evidence that they approved the gun-walking tactics used in the operation, which ultimately allowed hundreds of U.S. weapons to flow to violent Mexican drug cartels.
“All these people should be ashamed that they didn’t do as good a job as they should have,” Issa said.
The operation along the Southwest border in Arizona permitted illegal gun purchases in the hope that agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could track the weapons to cartel leaders. Instead, 1,700 guns were lost. Scores turned up at Mexican crime scenes, and two were recovered after a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed.
Holder testified that Justice staffers have responded to three dozen letters from Congress members and “facilitated numerous witness interviews.”
“This has been a significant undertaking for department employees, and our efforts in this regard remain ongoing,” Holder said. He added, “There is no attempt at any kind of a cover-up.”