Politics

Quayle: Holder ‘brainwash’ comments more reason for Fast and Furious special prosecutor

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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Arizona Republican Rep. Ben Quayle told The Daily Caller the revelation that Attorney General Eric Holder wanted to “brainwash” the American people into opposing firearm ownership is one more reason an independent special prosecutor is needed to investigate Operation Fast and Furious and hold administration officials accountable.

“If Attorney General Holder wants to brainwash law-abiding Americans into opposing firearm ownership, which is ludicrous, you would certainly think he’d agree that the Justice Department should not be putting guns into the hands of criminal cartels in Mexico,” Quayle said in an email on Tuesday. “It’s becoming more clear by the day that we need a special prosecutor to look into Fast and Furious as I’ve proposed.”

Over the weekend, Breitbart.com discovered a 1995 CSPAN video in which Holder — then the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — advocated using anti-smoking campaigns as a model for an anti-gun campaign.

“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we’ve changed our attitudes about cigarettes,” Holder said.

Holder explained that he wanted to use influential figures like then-Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, as well as widely watched TV shows like “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “Martin,” to forward his anti-gun campaign. He sought to push that same agenda through public schools as well, “every day, every school, at every level.”

Holder said these resources would be the driving force behind a campaign to “really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”

Earlier this year, Quayle introduced an official measure — House Resolution 532 — to demand that President Barack Obama name a special prosecutor to investigate Fast and Furious.

When introducing the resolution, Quayle told TheDC he thought Holder should resign and “should be removed immediately,” but added that there are still unanswered questions about what happened during Fast and Furious, who knew about the program and who approved the tactics used.

“You look at how all of this has been unfolding — it hasn’t been with any help from the DOJ,” Quayle said then. “They continue to obfuscate the facts, to really hamper the investigation that Chairman Issa is trying to perform, and I know you’ve seen it as well as some of the materials they provide are fully redacted pages.”

Quayle added that he thinks it’s “time we actually get the facts out on that table,” and that “the only way to do this is through a special counsel.”

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