Fast and furious contempt citation. Big deal?

Next Wednesday, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to
cite Eric Holder, Attorney General, for contempt of Congress. The House
scheduled that vote after Holder kept withholding information on
Operation Fast and Furious, and after Rep. Darrell Issa showed that
Holder knows more than he’s telling. But that citation, even if it
passes, will be too little, too late.

The facts about Operation Fast and Furious should “infuriate” anyone.
Since 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
ordered gun stores in four border States to let known gangsters buy
guns. ATF said it meant to track those guns as the gangsters
carried them across the border. They did not. A year and a half ago, a
US border agent died in a gun battle. Two of the guns that those gangsters bought from those gun stores turned up at the murder scene.

In January of 2011, the House of Representatives changed
hands. When Darrell Issa (R-CA) became chairman of the House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform, he started looking into Fast and
Furious. The more he found, the angrier he got, or so it seems. No doubt
Eric Holder, whose department includes ATF, would have preferred that
no one hear of Fast and Furious outside of his department and Issa’s
committee. But men like David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh covered the
story almost at once. And in February of 2011, CBS News became the first
old-line news organ to cover the story.

But despite the tireless work of men like Codrea and Vanderboegh, nothing meaningful has happened.

Will something meaningful now happen? At 1:00 a.m. today, WND warned
that the full House might vote to cite Holder for contempt of Congress.
Issa and others used that phrase a few times last year, but nothing
came of it. The WND report came suddenly. Two hours later came this report by CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson: the House would vote on June 20 to consider
citing Holder for contempt. (Attkisson also bragged about being first
to expose Operation Fast and Furious nationally. That clearly nettled Codrea and Vanderboegh.)

Considering that CBS got to the whistleblowers through
David and me (and we have the emails to prove it), that last statement
[by Attkisson] is a cheeky bit of hubris.

See also this report in The Washington Times, which Newsmax.com reprinted.

Vanderboegh, besides calling Attkisson for exaggerating her own importance, also said,

Now we find out what Issa, Boehner, and the GOP leadership are made of.

Sadly, we probably know what those men are made of: hot air, straw, or both.

Eric Holder, Attorney General. Photo: US Department of Justice

Anyone who has followed Codrea, Vanderboegh, or this space knows that Eric Holder has already poured contempt on Congress from the beginning. Nick Purpura, CNAV contributor and activist, puts it this way:

Eric Holder has been in contempt of Congress. And here we are, a year and a half after someone died, and we have seen no action? Are you kidding me?

Purpura reserved most of his anger, not for Holder, but for John Boehner, Speaker of the House.

Boehner has no excuse for not taking action. He should have charged Holder last year for obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and accessory to murder.

Purpura also chided Boehner for not looking into Barack Obama’s
eligibility to be President. He has earlier pointed out that, under the
Presidential Succession Act of 1947 as amended, Boehner could remove both Obama and Joe Biden from their offices and become Acting President.

Why won’t he act, even when he would serve his own
ambition by acting? Holder, Obama, and their friends must have something
on Boehner, and he is afraid to act.

Purpura does not expect the House to do anything, vote or no:

What are they waiting for? For [Mitt] Romney to win, so that all these issues go away?

He has a point. The voters can certainly remove Obama, Holder, and
all the rest from office. But without formal charges, Holder especially
will get away with:

1. Murder, and
2. Planting “throw-down” weapons to justify more gun control State-side.