My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:
UPDATE: In my piece I mentioned that the Democrats who voted against Holder were under real pressure not to do it. Politico has this:
UPDATE: The final vote was 255-67.
People died. It is something to remember during today’s historic House vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt. Never before has a sitting attorney general been held in contempt.
With all the hoopla over past scandals from Watergate to Filegate to Pardongate, the cover up was always worse than the crime. Yet, in "Fast and Furious," the guns that the US government supplied to Mexican drug gangs have been used to kill one American border agent and over 300 Mexican citizensand commit numerous other crimes.
To date, because of administration stonewalling, we don't have answers to the most basic questions. Why would the Obama administration give drug gangs guns without trying to trace them? Why not inform Mexican officials about the program so that the Mexicans could try tracing the guns on the Mexican side of the border? Why start pushing untraceable guns to Mexico at the same time that the Obama administration was making theirwildly false claim that 90 percent of crime guns in Mexico were from the US? . . .
UPDATE: In my piece I mentioned that the Democrats who voted against Holder were under real pressure not to do it. Politico has this:
The Georgia Democratic Party refused on Friday to denounce antagonistic comments the recently-elected chairman of its convention delegation made regarding U.S. Rep. John Barrow.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was just last week unanimously elected chairman of the state party’s convention delegation, said Barrow had betrayed his party by green lighting a Republican-championed effort to charge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt, the first instance in which federal lawmakers had imposed the sanction on a member of any presidential cabinet.
“You are a Republican hiding in Democrat’s clothing,” Lowery said of Barrow. “He doesn’t count in the Democratic column. He might as well go on and be a Republican.”
For the state’s most vulnerable incumbent pol, it was an unusually strong reprimand from a party-endorsed voice. . . .
UPDATE: The final vote was 255-67.
The vote was 255-67 with one lawmaker voting not present. Seventeen Democrats broke ranks to vote in favor of contempt, while two Republicans voted against the measure.More are following Pelosi's lead that the vote was motivated by Holder's attempt to stop voter suppression. Seriously?
The vote was preceded by a heated floor debate.
“It’s important to remember how we got here,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said during a speech ahead of the vote. “The Justice Department has not provided the facts and information we requested. … It’s our constitutional duty to find out.”
The GOP-led House took the step over the alleged failure to provide additional information about the failed gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious which was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.
Democrats walked out of the chamber ahead of the vote.
“What is happening here is shameful," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who argued House Republicans are more politically motivated in attacking Holder than getting to the bottom of the failed operation, in which at least two of the guns were connected to the fatal shooting of U.S. border agent Brian Terry. . . .
AME expressed its “profound disagreement” with the contempt vote and also suggested that Holder had been unfairly targeted for his effort to curtail voter suppression laws. . . .
Newest Fox News piece: Holder contempt citation -- just remember that people died because of 'Fast and Furious'
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Oleh
abudzar
