South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, one of the most outspoken Congressional critics of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, said Thursday that he thinks President Barack Obama may end up firing Attorney General Eric Holder before the election.
“Oh, I think the thing that drives 99.9 percent of all elected officials is very easy to put your finger on,” Gowdy said in an interview with NRA News’ Ginny Simone. “It starts with a ‘re’ and ends with ‘election.’”
“I think that if he [Obama] believes that the Attorney General has become something of an albatross, and is impacting his ability to carry some swing states, Eric Holder will be in the private practice of law quicker than you say Marc Rich,” Gowdy said.
Rich is the billionaire commodities trader who was under federal indictment for illegally making oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Holder ultimately facilitated President Bill Clinton’s pardon of Rich on Clinton’s last day in office.
Gowdy said that he, Rep. Darrell Issa and others pushing for accountability on Operation Fast and Furious will not stop until they get all the answers.
Gowdy also said he and Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz had privately discussed how they think they would be similarly aggressive with a Republican administration in regards to Fast and Furious. However, Holder has not complied with an Oversight Committee subpoena, and his defenders have criticized Republican efforts to go after the Attorney General.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa served Holder a subpoena on Oct. 12, 2011. Holder has thus far failed to comply with all 22 categories of the subpoena that requires him to provide Congress with documents relating to Fast and Furious. With 13 of the categories, Holder has provided no documents. When it comes to the other nine subpoena categories, Holder is still far from compliant, as TheDC reported late last week.
Later in the interview, Gowdy criticized the White House’s policies beyond Fast and Furious. “We’ve been in full campaign mode for, what, almost 12 months now?” Gowdy said. “Everything that comes out of his mouth, whether it’s an epiphany on marriage, whether it’s XL Keystone, everything is tailored toward being re-elected, and as he told the Russian president, he hopes to have more ‘flexibility’ in a second term.”
That comment to outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Gowdy said, “ought to scare the ever-living daylights out of everyone.”
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