Holder held in contempt of Congress
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The House has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his failure to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal, the first time Congress has taken such a dramatic move against a sitting Cabinet official.
The vote was 255-67, with 17 Democrats voting in support of a criminal contempt resolution, which authorizes Republicans leaders to seek criminal charges against Holder. This Democratic support came despite a round of behind-the-scenes lobbying by senior White House and Justice officials - as well as pressure from party leaders - to support Hold
Dozens of Democrats marched off the floor in protest during the vote, adding even more drama to a tumultuous moment in the House chamber.
Another civil contempt resolution, giving the green light for the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to sue the Justice Department to get the Fast and Furious documents, is still pending.
The heated House floor vote on Holder capped a historic day in Washington, coming just hours after the Supreme Court, just across the street from the Capitol, issued its landmark ruling upholding most of Barack Obama’s health care law. The passions of the day were evident inside the Capitol, where Democrats accused Republicans of ginning up the contempt vote for political purposes while Republicans continued to charge the Justice Department with a cover up on the Fast and Furious scandal.
The fight over the Holder contempt resolution also drew intense interest from outside groups ranging from the NAACP to the National Rifle Association.
Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the lead Republican investigator during the Fast and Furious probe, said the House had to take such a move in order to get to the bottom of the scandal.
“Throughout this process, I have reiterated my desire to reach a settlement that would allow us to cancel today’s vote,” Issa said. “Our purpose has never been to hold the Attorney General in contempt. Our purpose has always been to get the information that the Committee needs to complete its work, and to which it is entitled.”
Issa also pointed out that then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) backed a call for a contempt resolution against the Bush White House over the firing of U.S. attorneys back in 2008, which he raised to counter Democratic charges of partisanship.
The practical, immediate impact of the contempt votes will be minimal. Holder remains as attorney general with strong backing from Obama, and any criminal referral after the contempt vote is unlikely to go far.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) stressed that Holder and the Justice Department needed to be held accountable for not providing sufficient answers to Congress about what happened during Fast and Furious.
“Now, I don’t take this matter lightly. I frankly hoped it would never come to this,” Boehner said. “But no Justice Department is above the law and no Justice Department is above the Constitution, which each of us has sworn to uphold.”
But the GOP-led move infuriated other Democrats, especially minority lawmakers, who see racism and unbridled partisanship in the Republican drive to sanction the first African-American to hold the attorney general post in U.S. history.
The Democratic walkout was led by the Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom gathered outside the Capitol while their GOP colleagues moved against Holder.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77988.html#ixzz1z7i...
Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron." The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF's congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.
Voth, 39, was a good choice for a Sisyphean task. Strapping and sandy-haired, the former Marin...
Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron." The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF's congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.
Voth, 39, was a good choice for a Sisyphean task. Strapping and sandy-haired, the former Marine is cool-headed and punctilious to a fault. In 2009 the ATF named him outstanding law-enforcement employee of the year for dismantling two violent street gangs in Minneapolis. He was the "hardest working federal agent I've come across," says John Biederman, a sergeant with the Minneapolis Police Department. But as Voth left to become the group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII, a friend warned him: "You're destined to fail."
Voth's mandate was to stop gun traffickers in Arizona, the state ranked by the gun-control advocacy group Legal Community Against Violence as having the nation's "weakest gun violence prevention laws." Just 200 miles from Mexico, which prohibits gun sales, the Phoenix area is home to 853 federally licensed firearms dealers. Billboards advertise volume discounts for multiple purchases.
Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they're 18 or older and pass a criminal background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. "In Arizona," says Voth, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."
By 2009 the Sinaloa drug cartel had made Phoenix its gun supermarket and recruited young Americans as its designated shoppers or straw purchasers. Voth and his agents began investigating a group of buyers, some not even old enough to buy beer, whose members were plunking down as much as $20,000 in cash to purchase up to 20 semiautomatics at a time, and then delivering the weapons to others.
That's what really happened and the NRA is responsible for the weapons going to Mexico, Not Eric Holder. You want justice for Brian Terry? I doubt it. Your hatred overshadows any truth that may be out there.
It appears there are two classes of people; those of us who have to obey the law and political appointees who are deemed above having to honor the law.
This has to go further. Criminal charges are appropriate and they must stick, otherwise on a pragmatic level there is no such thing as law in the U.S.
http://features.blogs.fortune...
http://www.washingtonpost.com...
like i said if your going to use sources... make sure u read them first and they are reliable and pertain to the claims at hand
and the rest is nonconsequestial ....he had his chance ..but obuzo will go down with him ,,and if he werent guilty WHY did he exercise exeuctive privledge ....are you REALLY THAT CHALLENGED ?